Security elements (“secure elements”) are employed in many areas, for example as subscriber identification modules in the form of SIM cards for proving an access authorization to a mobile radio network or in the form of chip cards for carrying out electronic cash transactions. Their employment frequently involves interaction with a reader or end device intended for the particular application, for example a mobile telephone or a payment terminal. Except in the case of very simple applications, the security element is as a rule required to have a processor on which at least one application for executing the application runs. Many security elements are equipped in this connection with an operating system besides an application, with the program code of the application as well as the program code representing the operating system being stored in a non-volatile memory of the security element and being executed by its processor during operation.
It is not unusual that when a batch of security elements is being manufactured their area of employment in the field is as a rule not exactly known. Hence it can happen that the settings of operating parameters of a security element as performed by the manufacturer or issuer are not optimal for its actual employment, since the manufacturer or issuer must as a rule make a compromise insofar as the operating parameters must be chosen so as to allow an operation of the security element in substantially all potentially possible areas of employment.
For example, with a batch of security elements configured as subscriber identification modules in the form of SIM cards, it can happen that some of this batch of subscriber identification modules are employed in end devices having a substantially fixed location, such as vending machines, set-top boxes, sensor apparatuses or smart-meter apparatuses, in which the subscriber identification module is activated as a rule only briefly, i.e. logs into a mobile radio network only briefly in order to transmit a status report to a background system connected to the mobile radio network. Another part of said batch of subscriber identification modules, however, could be employed in end devices that frequently change their location and require in practice an uninterrupted access to a mobile radio network.
Against this background, the present invention is based on the object of providing an improved method for operating a security element, as well as an accordingly configured security element, which can at least partly remedy the hereinabove described disadvantages.